Poll of the Day > The poll options should be just Yes or No

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't get why everything needs to have 5 options. Or why responses need to talk about things that aren't asked about in the question.

There is no poll here and there ain't never was

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I don't get why everything needs to have 5 options. Or why responses need to talk about things that aren't asked about in the question.

Why doesn't your poll have at least 5 options?

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I don't get why everything needs to have 5 options. Or why responses need to talk about things that aren't asked about in the question.

Mostly because open-ended research like this benefits from additional specificity. A binary yes/no indicates nothing about frequency, success rate, or people's reasons for choosing yes/no, which makes it hard to derive any value from the answers. Big Data is about finding as many correlations as possible to capture every available opportunity to profit from said data. Having more specific answers helps with that.

adjl posted...

Mostly because open-ended research like this benefits from additional specificity. A binary yes/no indicates nothing about frequency, success rate, or people's reasons for choosing yes/no, which makes it hard to derive any value from the answers. Big Data is about finding as many correlations as possible to capture every available opportunity to profit from said data. Having more specific answers helps with that.

Do you think a poll with 7000 responses is worth a lot?

adjl posted...

A binary yes/no indicates nothing about frequency, success rate, or people's reasons for choosing yes/no

So, just picking something at random...
Do you like oranges?
*Yes, they are better than strawberries.
*Yes, they are better than apples.
*Yes, they are better than bananas.
*No, I'd rather have apricots.
*No, I'd rather have pomegranates.

What if someone likes oranges but not as much as strawberries, apples, and bananas? What if someone is not fond of oranges but would take one if offered more so than an apricot or a pomegranate? Which response are they suppose to pick?

The maker of these options is imposing their own opinion of which fruits are better and is skewing the results to fall in line with that bias.The question never asked about other fruits. Any correlation that is created is the product of how the poll was conducted rather than the views of people polled.

Depends.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

So, just picking something at random...
Do you like oranges?
*Yes, they are better than strawberries.
*Yes, they are better than apples.
*Yes, they are better than bananas.
*No, I'd rather have apricots.
*No, I'd rather have pomegranates.

What if someone likes oranges but not as much as strawberries, apples, and bananas? What if someone is not fond of oranges but would take one if offered more so than an apricot or a pomegranate? Which response are they suppose to pick?

The maker of these options is imposing their own opinion of which fruits are better and is skewing the results to fall in line with that bias.

While I'll agree with the sentiment that you're arguing for (loaded polls are bad), your argument is flawed and you're using a loaded example (ironic, considering it's what you're rallying against). You can just as easily make a loaded yes/no poll if the question itself is loaded (and I've often seen it), polls with more options aren't inherently loaded, and more poll options can give more information depending on what/how you're asking.

As far as your orange example, how is that any worse than: "Jesus preached how moral people liked oranges. Do you like oranges? Yes/No?"

Where as you could ask what is your opinion on oranges oranges?
"Strong like"
"Weak like"
"Indifferent"
"Weak dislike"
"Strong dislike"

If you're interested in the overall viewpoint people have on oranges the more open ended poll gives a clearer understanding. Where as with just a Yes/No "Do you like oranges", people that are indifferent to oranges and people that have a strong hatred to them will be lumped together.

sveksii posted...

your argument is flawed and you're using a loaded example (ironic, considering it's what you're rallying against).

That was the point. I wanted to make it obvious that it was loaded.

sveksii posted...

As far as your orange example, how is that any worse than: "Jesus preached how moral people liked oranges. Do you like oranges? Yes/No?"

By prefacing the question this way it might influence people to answer in a way to appear moral. But the question asked has nothing to do with that. They can still respond by disregarding the first part. They cannot disregard part of the response since there is implied agreement with the extraneous statement.

sveksii posted...

Where as you could ask what is your opinion on oranges oranges?
"Strong like"
"Weak like"
"Indifferent"
"Weak dislike"
"Strong dislike"

All of those responses are what the question asked for. My complaint is when the responses make a statement in addition to that.

sveksii posted...

Where as with just a Yes/No "Do you like oranges", people that are indifferent to oranges and people that have a strong hatred to them will be lumped together.

I still think a simple Yes/No would work just as well. If you want to know more ask further questions.
How much do you like oranges? Yes/No
How many oranges have you eaten today? Yes/No
How many oranges can you juggle. Yes/No
Now you have 3 pieces of information you can correlate without making the responses confusing.

So, you made this be of the APotD board topic?

"How many keys do you usually carry around with you?"

Yes.

How many oranges have you eaten today? Yes/No

On what planet is this a yes/no question? That question requires the response of a number.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

So, just picking something at random...
Do you like oranges?
*Yes, they are better than strawberries.
*Yes, they are better than apples.
*Yes, they are better than bananas.
*No, I'd rather have apricots.
*No, I'd rather have pomegranates.

What if someone likes oranges but not as much as strawberries, apples, and bananas? What if someone is not fond of oranges but would take one if offered more so than an apricot or a pomegranate? Which response are they suppose to pick?

The maker of these options is imposing their own opinion of which fruits are better and is skewing the results to fall in line with that bias.The question never asked about other fruits. Any correlation that is created is the product of how the poll was conducted rather than the views of people polled.

That's introducing wholly unrelated information with the responses, though, in a way that's going to make it difficult to get any additional value out of them. If you want to distill people's fruit preferences down that much, you'd be better off asking "Which of the following fruits do you like better than oranges?" or giving people a list to rank according to their preferences.

The options here don't exclude respondents, they provide answers to the obvious follow-up questions of "how often/successfully?" and "if not, why not?", which increases the value of the responses. The exact wording of #3 in particular is a bit questionable because "nobody's ever watched" should probably be interpreted as "not enough people watched to make doing it regularly worthwhile" instead of literally "nobody," but that interpretation is obvious enough that I don't consider it a major issue. What, exactly, do you think is being excluded or confused?

I guarantee people who carry more than eight keys with them don't use every key every single day.

LinkPizza posted...

So, you made this be of the APotD board topic?

On APotD a topic is made to discuss a specific poll and all discussion is held within that topic. The subject of this topic is not a specific poll and is a general issue with all polls.

Monopoman posted...

How many oranges have you eaten today? Yes/No

On what planet is this a yes/no question? That question requires the response of a number.

Still less confusing than the options we normally get?

adjl posted...

That's introducing wholly unrelated information with the responses, though, in a way that's going to make it difficult to get any additional value out of them.

Yes, just like what normally happens. That is what I intended to demonstrate.

adjl posted...

you'd be better off asking "Which of the following fruits do you like better than oranges?" or giving people a list to rank according to their preferences.

What colors have you personally seen?
White
Red
Yellow
Blue
Green
Orange
Purple
Brown
Black
Grey

Only pick one. We don't get multiple choices in the poll of the day.

adjl posted...

The exact wording of #3 in particular is a bit questionable because "nobody's ever watched" should probably be interpreted as "not enough people watched to make doing it regularly worthwhile" instead of literally "nobody," but that interpretation is obvious enough that I don't consider it a major issue. What, exactly, do you think is being excluded or confused?

Same poll #5 "No, I don't want anybody to watch me play anything online"
Maybe I would be interested in doing it, but I haven't tried yet nor have I uploaded any videos.
Which option accurately reflects that response?

Current poll #5 "Eight or more - I've got a lot of locks to open every day"
Let's say I don't want to put them somewhere and forget where that was by the time I need one of them. Or I don't want to need one of them but not have it because I didn't anticipate that I would need it. This option disregards the reasons people would carry more keys than they regularly use. So where is the response that accurately reflects those reasons?

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

On APotD a topic is made to discuss a specific poll and all discussion is held within that topic. The subject of this topic is not a specific poll and is a general issue with all polls.

Yeah I was asking because I noticed you complaining in one of the recent topics

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

What colors have you personally seen?
White
Red
Yellow
Blue
Green
Orange
Purple
Brown
Black
Grey

Only pick one. We don't get multiple choices in the poll of the day.

While we dont get multiple choices (yet), but they also dont ask questions like that

LinkPizza posted...

While we dont get multiple choices (yet), but they also dont ask questions like that

I have seen the occasional poll where the responses were not mutually exclusive and more than one could have applied.

Does your home have a front door?
Yes, to keep people from getting in.
Yes, to keep my pets from getting out.
No, only a back door.
No, I use the window to enter and exit.

The front door can do both things. The back door can also do those things. You could choose to use the window to enter and exit regardless of having doors.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I have seen the occasional poll where the responses were not mutually exclusive and more than one could have applied.

Does your home have a front door?
Yes, to keep people from getting in.
Yes, to keep my pets from getting out.
No, only a back door.
No, I use the window to enter and exit.

The front door can do both things. The back door can also do those things. You could choose to use the window to enter and exit regardless of having doors.

While the polls questions can be a little weird sometimes with answers, they usually arent like that. Most have an answer that fits (or mostly fits) with someone Even that weird poll you have above has an answe that fits most of the time

Yes
No
Maybe
I don't know
Can you repeat the question

No, but the lack of flavor text would be refreshing.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

What colors have you personally seen?
White
Red
Yellow
Blue
Green
Orange
Purple
Brown
Black
Grey

Only pick one. We don't get multiple choices in the poll of the day.

That would therefore be a stupid poll question.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Same poll #5 "No, I don't want anybody to watch me play anything online"
Maybe I would be interested in doing it, but I haven't tried yet nor have I uploaded any videos.
Which option accurately reflects that response?

Same one. You don't want to do it to enough of an extent to have tried, therefore you haven't done it. The barrier for entry to streaming is extremely low and there's really no excuse for not doing it if you have any interest whatsoever.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Current poll #5 "Eight or more - I've got a lot of locks to open every day"
Let's say I don't want to put them somewhere and forget where that was by the time I need one of them. Or I don't want to need one of them but not have it because I didn't anticipate that I would need it. This option disregards the reasons people would carry more keys than they regularly use. So where is the response that accurately reflects those reasons?

The only reason to carry that many keys is if you're actually using many of them regularly. That's enough keys to make carrying the ring around at all times unwieldy, so if you're doing that and you have a lot of keys on there that you rarely use, you should consider transferring them to a secondary ring to free up space in your pocket and reduce the risk of losing one.

There are certainly cases where the added text ends up making things more confusing than it should, and occasionally cases with redundant answers, but neither of these polls are really examples of that.

adjl posted...

You don't want to do it to enough of an extent to have tried, therefore you haven't done it.

Laziness is still a separate reason from not wanting people to watch me.

adjl posted...

There are certainly cases where the added text ends up making things more confusing than it should, and occasionally cases with redundant answers, but neither of these polls are really examples of that.

You asked me what I thought was being excluded. I pointed out what I thought was being excluded. You now seem to be changing the subject to make it seem like your question was about something else.

Open ended questions have more than one answer. That is why.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Laziness is still a separate reason from not wanting people to watch me.

Laziness is simply a matter of not being motivated enough to put in the necessary effort. When the necessary effort is virtually zero, any amount of motivation is enough to justify that effort. Therefore, not being motivated enough to exert the effort means you don't want it.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

You asked me what I thought was being excluded. I pointed out what I thought was being excluded. You now seem to be changing the subject to make it seem like your question was about something else.

No, that would be a summary paragraph. I specifically addressed the points you made earlier in the post, then concluded the post with a paragraph that acknowledged that there are circumstances in which your criticisms are valid, but that this isn't such a case.

As it happens, today's poll is a good example: The listed options exclude anyone that prefers to play with other people but doesn't have a specific favourite person, which is a pretty common situation.

adjl posted...

Therefore, not being motivated enough to exert the effort means you don't want it.

"I don't want anybody to watch me" means that you are adverse to people watching you.
"I'm too lazy" suggests you are accepting of people watching you. So you might be indifferent to it or want it a little.
Let's say you do want it at least a little, that little bit just isn't sufficient to overcome your laziness. But you still want it at least a little.

adjl posted...

No, that would be a summary paragraph.

Your summary paragraph summarized something that was not a concern until just then. You're basing what makes a good example on whether you personally were confused by a given poll. That has nothing to do with a potential response being excluded. That only means you didn't think of it.

adjl posted...

I specifically addressed the points you made earlier in the post

A more accurate summary is.. those aren't good reasons, just don't carry that many keys. This ignores the actual point I was making that someone might have those reasons in mind when answering the poll, but no option reflects them due to being way too specific in other areas.

G. Other

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

"I don't want anybody to watch me" means that you are adverse to people watching you.

It can mean that. It can also mean that the extent to which you want people to watch you is negligible, which is consistent with lacking the motivation to put in a similarly negligible amount of effort.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

You're basing what makes a good example on whether you personally were confused by a given poll.

Well, yeah. If I wasn't confused by a given poll, that means anyone that was confused can alleviate that confusion by becoming as staggeringly brilliant as I, which I help along by explaining why they don't need to be confused. If I am confused, that gives me reason to believe there's a problem until somebody can point out why I'm wrong to think that. Whether or not a given person thinks it's confusing is going to be entirely a matter of their own perception and understanding of it, which is not infallible and can be corrected in many cases.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

A more accurate summary is.. those aren't good reasons, just don't carry that many keys.

Alternatively, "there's no good reason to do this, so don't expect the flavour text added to polls to reflect your reasoning."

adjl posted...

It can also mean that the extent to which you want people to watch you is negligible

No, that's the opposite. Wanting it a negligible amount means you want it at least a little.

adjl posted...

that means anyone that was confused can alleviate that confusion by becoming as staggeringly brilliant as I

Thus far you have exhibited these traits...
Has difficulty with abstract thinking.
Demands more of other people than is personally willing to do.

I am now adding these to the list...
Bad at characterizing own behavior.
Unimaginative.

No.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

No, that's the opposite. Wanting it a negligible amount means you want it at least a little.

"Negligible" means you can ignore the amount without consequence. That's just the definition of the word: able to be neglected. In this case, it means that saying you have zero desire to stream is accurate enough, which is true.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

Thus far you have exhibited these traits...
Has difficulty with abstract thinking.
Demands more of other people than is personally willing to do.

I am now adding these to the list...
Bad at characterizing own behavior.
Unimaginative.

Sounds like you're just making a bunch of excuses for being wrong. That's generally not a great idea if you want to actually improve yourself.

adjl posted...

"Negligible" means you can ignore the amount without consequence. That's just the definition of the word: able to be neglected. In this case, it means that saying you have zero desire to stream is accurate enough, which is true.

What you're ignoring is the actual point I was making. Let's say it takes 0 effort to stream yourself. It does take some effort but let's say the target value is 0. Let's also say that wanting people to watch you gives you a motivation of 3. However your laziness is at a value of -5.
Laziness + Motivation < Target Value
That's a reason someone might have which was not accounted for by the available responses. So far your rebuttal to that point has been "since you weren't the one to think of it, it doesn't exist".

adjl posted...

Sounds like you're just making a bunch of excuses for being wrong. That's generally not a great idea if you want to actually improve yourself.

You're using the fact that I thought of something you didn't as a reason you're better than me?